Minimum age for kindergarten beneficial for students

Think back to the feel-good days of kindergarten: nap time, coloring and playing with friends on the playground. While the inherent fun of kindergarten may never change, this school year, the compositions of classes will drastically change, and students with fall birthdays will now take a slightly roundabout route getting there.

Kids with fall birthdays will end up being on the older end of their classes in the long-run following the enactment of the state’s Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010, a change that will ultimately benefit kindergarten students and our education system.

Two years ago, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this bill into law, altering the California Department of Education’s previous minimum age required for children to enter kindergarten.

Beginning in the 2012-13 school year, all children entering kindergarten must turn 5 on or before Nov. 1, and then by Oct. 1 for the 2013-14 school year. By the 2014-15 school year, all students will be required to be 5-years-old on or before Sept. 1.

The previous age requirement was Dec. 2, meaning that parents whose kids are born in the fall always had a difficult choice: Do they send their children to school early or do they have them on the older side of the spectrum in their grade?

By standardizing the kindergarten age, parents are no longer faced with the debate of whether they are making the right decision. It also eliminates economic factors from affecting children’s education.

For example, parents who are pressed financially might be inclined to send their children to kindergarten earlier as a form of free daycare, regardless of whether the child is prepared. Having a standard age for children entering kindergarten will help parents in these tough situations.

Although this new age requirement would have held back many currently successful students had it been enacted earlier, the standardization of age for kindergarten will benefit California schools. One of the main improvements is a new program known as transitional kindergarten, which was created for students with fall birthdays lying close to the cutoff date.

Described by the California Education Code as using a “modified kindergarten curriculum that is age and developmentally appropriate,” transitional kindergarten is available in all public schools this year for students who turn 5-years-old in between Nov. 2 and Dec. 2. From the 2014-15 school year onward, transitional kindergarten  will include students whose fifth birthdays lie between Sept. 2 and Dec. 2.

Transitional kindergarten will focus mainly on social and emotional development, such as interacting with other children and learning common social skills and conventions. These students, having already been exposed to a school-type environment, will then be better equipped to join a more academically focused kindergarten classroom.

A 2007 International Foundation for Science (IFS) report has shown that younger-born children, especially those born after the cutoff date, lag behind their older classmates in literacy, language and math. Not only are they less competent in academics, they are also less socially adept.

These disadvantages don’t just go away after kindergarten. They can last several years—or even longer.

With these new changes standardizing age in kindergarten, younger children don’t have to feel inferior to their older classmates any longer. Instead, they can start their educational journey ready to learn.